September 11, 2013

"I have said for years that it doesn’t belong there. In a restaurant, the chef should determine the seasoning of the food, and you may judge the restaurant on the choices made. If you want to decide for yourself, eat at home. Salt no more belongs on a table than do cloves or cinnamon or, for that matter, pepper.

38 comments:

There is an urban legend about Thomas Edison: "Thomas Edison was taking a gentleman to dinner after interviewing him for a position on his research team. The man salted his food before trying it and Edison told him he wouldn't hire anyone that would make such assumptions without first testing it." May not be a true story.

Isn't this though the reverse of that? The assumption that salt won't be needed, that the chef can automatically determine what the taster will prefer. Maybe, the chef cooked someting that needs more salt?

So, in keeping with Thomas Edison's argument, I wouldn't eat at a restaurant that made such assumptions without allowing me to test their conclusions.

I think that leaving salt off the table is a bad idea. If anything is a matter of taste, certainly the issue of how much, or how little, salt I want to use fits that category. I think many restaurants cook for the no-salt group, knowing that salt can be added at the table. If it is taken away, that is allowing one group to dictate to the other. Can we all say, "Michelle Obama"

I disagree. Quite a few recipes state "season to taste". If the chef seasons the dish to his/her taste, it isn't to mine. personally, I like pepper on my fries, and they don't come that way, which is fine because not everyone likes them that way.

MAtter of personal choice, if they take it off the table, I will just ask for it. If they remove entirely from the restaurant, I will most likely stay away until a new establishment takes up residence in the failed establishment's digs a few weeks or months later.

Kurlansky fails to recognize the people have different taste sensitivity.

Should the chef determine the size of the print on the menu and forbid the use of reading glasses?

I, for one, have a diminished sense of taste, and if the chef used other flavorings to keep the food from being bland, it might not work on me. I might need to compensate with salt that he finds unnecessary.

The best advice is to consume in moderation. Each individual has different nutrient requirements based on their individual circumstances, which vary throughout their life, throughout the year, etc. The human body is an adaptive system. Each individual needs to be attentive to their condition.

One of my favorite TV scenes ever is from the BBC sitcom "Chef". In this episode, Chef hears that a customer has asked his waiter for salt. He berates him loudly and publicly. I'm smiling again even as I type this.

One of my favorite TV scenes ever is from the BBC sitcom "Chef". In this episode, Chef hears that a customer has asked his waiter for salt. He berates him loudly and publicly. I'm smiling again even as I type this.

Except too many restaurants listened to whiny little bitches like Bloomberg (God it's nice that despite out-spending pro-gun pols 8-to-1 Mikey lost BIG in CO yesterday) and cut back on their salt use, leaving restaurant food bland and unworthy of paying for. Now we know that all the anti-salt hysteria was hooey. But keep your goddamn hands off my shaker!

Hating table salt figures since humans are only salt water, chloesterol and a few minerals...and it's normally the humans that the puritanical leftists of the faked science cults want to see cleansed from the earth, or else!

Some things I prefer saltier than standard. If they make my chicken dumpling soup or prime rib as salty as I prefer it they'd be out of business. So I don't even bother to sample first, I just put some salt on and test it, if it's still not salty enough I add a bit more.

To my taste, trying a bit before adding salt is as worthless as sampling some raw beef before grilling it.

Letting the chef decide is as stupid as only having one variety of hot wing spiciness at a wing joint.

As humans age, their taste buds lose their sensitivities. This is why children are picky eaters and adults love tabasco sauce. The chef cannot possibly salt exactly to the taste preference of ever customer. Unless he loses so many customers to his unbelievable conceitedness that there are only a handful. Chef, please show me your PhD, you insufferable twit.

There was a French restaurant in the small suburb where my parents live which they use as the epitome of pretentiousness - they took a friend there, who, after tasting, asked the waiter for salt. The waiter returned a minute later and replied "The chef says the food is perfectly seasoned".

If you and your friend go to a restaurant so neither of you has to cook, and you can spend more time to gossip. If your friend likes mild flavored hamburgers, if you like a little bit more salt in yours. Where do you go for those just right burgers?

This is ridiculous. Since moving to Fort Wayne I've found people around here apparently have very delicate palates. I like spicy, they like bland. Hot salsa around here means extra onion. I don't put extra salt on my food, but I can see why some people might.

"Kurlansky fails to recognize the people have different taste sensitivity."

This is the key point and why not allowing people to adjust for this difference is silly.

The anti-salt crowd always pushes that it is better to use less salt in cooking and allow people to add salt at the table to suit, which reduces the total salt used. So, not having salt at the table counters this concept.

I'm tired of the anti-salt nonsense. I'm tired of people saying some salt is better than other (like some water tastes better than others). I want to scream when I see the Campbell's commercial where the chef is trying to come up with a healthier reduced salt version of his soup, but maintaining that great Campbell's flavor. "Sea Salt!" is the answer. Because, you know, sodium chloride from a salt mine is different from sodium chloride from the ocean.

Food for thought. H2O is H2O. By definition it is odorless, colorless and tasteless. Any "taste" is something else in the water. Sodium chloride is sodium chloride. Any real distinction means there is something else in the salt. Sorry for the digression.

Removing salt from restaurant tables moves us a little closer to a world where all seasoning of food is done by state functionaries in government kitchens. Immanentizing the eschaton, one condiment at a time.

The people of Ft. Wayne do not have delicate palates. The people of Ft. Wayne do not have delicate anything. I have been to Ft. Wayne. I made the colossal error of ordering a broccoli quiche... sometime around 1986 or so... it looked like broccoli that had knocked over by a very weak cheese storm. It was a disaster. And I realized that, by and large, the "restaurant renaissance" that was going on in so many big cities was happening for a reason. Like the broccoli quiche in Ft. Wayne. You probably still can't get decent broccoli quiche in Ft. Wayne, but you can at least buy a cup of good coffee. You take it where you can get it.